We spend a lot of time theorizing and thinking about how to motivate learners. But what about motivating instructional designers?Post from: The eLearning CoachMotivating The Instructional Designer

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the interest of improving my craft. Synopsis: The week before Winter Break is always a challenge (and a thrill) as kids’ minds are racing during the run-up to Christmas. Kindergarten had a fun & easy Kerpoof "Think Snow!" project, First Grade learned about website navigation & did some quick animal research, while Second, Third and Fourth graders explored basic programming principles with the fun and challenging "LightBot" programming activity. Please note: in our current "Day" rotation, Mondays are Day 3, which means my new lessons start on Thursday (Day 1). These "days" change over the course of the year due to holidays, etc. Week ending 12/21/12 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Kids warmed up with some keyboarding fun (an activity of their choice) on the Kindergarten Symbaloo page. We then talked about the approaching winter season and some of our favorite winter activities like building snowmen, making snow angels, building snow forts/igloos, ice skating, etc. Kids then went to Kerpoof and used the "Make a Picture" activity (yellow square) to select a wintry background to which they added graphics and text. (The image above is an example I whipped up, not student work; I forgot to grab a sample or two off the Chromebooks before leaving Friday). Some searched for images (with help); all students entered and placed text, placed and sized images (we learned about perspective in the process). What I observed / inferred / connected: This was an easy activity for everyone with the exception of placing and manipulating text, which is always a challenge for our youngest learners with this site, but kids had no problem finding and using appropriate backgrounds. graphics and more. Kerpoof is one of our favorite resources because of its ease of use, variety of activities, engaging graphics and quality of printed output. The activities are well suited for learners of all ages, even middle schoolers (for the advanced video creation capabilities). What students can do at home: As always, check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for fun activities and skill builders. If your child plays Keyboard Climber, encourage them to persist all the way "to the moon," and make a big deal about it when they get there. It’s definitely doable. Then be sure to tell them to let me know the next time they see me so I can give them a big "high-five." First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Kids warmed up with a keyboarding activity of their choice on the First Grade Symbaloo page. We talked about website navigation, advertising, hyperlinks, radio buttons and tabbed browsing. Students opened the KBears site from the First Grade Symbaloo page and selected an animal from a random set of cards I prepared using screenshots from the site. They then had to navigate the various parts of the page, including all photos, then locate and print the coloring page for their animal. What I observed / inferred / connected: It’s amazing what first graders already know about website navigation and advertising (and what to do with / how to avoid the latter). Clearly these kids spend a lot of time online. KBears is a terrific resource, particularly their Animals section, which is easy to navigate and filled with information. What students can do at home: Let your child show you around KBears, including other areas of the site. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo page for fun online activities! Second, Third & Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We introduced the concept of basic programming by having students "program" me to navigate my foam mats toward and ultimately to pick up "Gumdrop," our class mascot webkin that was on the floor behind the chair in the photo above. We used sheets of paper with "Forward," "Turn Left," "Turn Right," and "Pick Up" to represent movement. Once the "program" was written, I "ran" it, then a student volunteer did as well. (Hilarity ensued when the cards got out of order, with students crashing into the blocks or walking far off into another part of the classroom.) Students used the Symbaloo page for their grade to access the icon for "Light Bot," a simple yet powerful activity designed to players to properly sequence commands to accomplish an objective. ("Hard Fun," as Semour Papert might say.) What I observed / inferred / connected: The initial levels are pretty straightforward and can be accomplished without the use of  "functions" (a.k.a. subroutines) because there are enough open blocks in the "main method" section. Soon, however, students discover they are unable to complete each level unless they use at least one function. We explain the concept of functions (and even recursion) as things get more complex. I like Light Bot because it is simple to explain, use and debug. Some kids struggled, but most were successful and there was a lot of collaboration and excited high-fives. More than once I heard students say "I get it now!" which was GREAT to hear! What students can do at home: Playing Light Bot is fun as long as players continue to progress. Encourage them to experiment and remember to debug by removing one block at a time from the end of the sequence. They can also get creative with the path(s) they choose to make the robot follow. It’s a great introduction to programming!

The last few months have been so busy that I have not been taking the time to blog. I rather expect that there is a client or two who might be a little bit testy if they thought that *their*...

This has nothing to do with technology, science, learning, teaching or anything else… I just had my 100th follower join my happy little family of people who read my blog. … Continue reading →

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: We are kicking off the new year in a big way in the STEMLAB! This was a week of firsts (some more significant than others) in every grade as we tried and applied new technologies and/or methods in every class. Kindergarteners worked with the web-based version of SMART Notebook; First graders used giant paper rulers the size (and shape) of their bodies to measure things in the classroom; and Second, Third and Fourth graders analyzed data by creating a Google Docs spreadsheet using a screencast (a video lesson I pre-recorded). Please note: in our current "Day" rotation, my new lessons start on Thursdays (Day 1). These "days" change over the course of the year due to holidays, etc. (This also means that as of this writing, three of my five classes have not seen these lessons yet.) Week ending 01/04/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: We warmed up with some keyboarding fun and an introduction to "Super Hyper Spider Typer," a longtime lab favorite (even though it is a bit challenging for some even on the ‘Easy’ setting; they were allowed to choose another keyboarding activity if they wanted.) We had a conversation about weather and seasons and they played a few online weather clothing games (here, and here.) Back together as a whole group I demonstrated the lesson, a simple drag-and drop activity utilizing the free SMART Notebook Express (it was more of a test of that software than the kids’ abilities.) Students had to dress the bear properly and add their name using the text tool. We then saved the files and I uploaded them to Google Docs. What I observed / inferred / connected: Super Hyper Spider Typer is a stretch skill-wise but still fun at this age level for many; boys seemed to like it the most. (I’ll do anything I can to encourage alphabet/keyboard awareness at this age.) The two online weather clothing games (here and here) were apparently unintentionally hilarious; kids were literally laughing out loud as they played (fine by me!) The SMART Notebook Express software functioned well enough but is extremely limited. Its primary value is as a tool to interact with an existing Notebook file. Creation capabilities are essentially non-existent. Perhaps a later release will include more functionality. It is good however to have a Chromebook-compatible SMART Notebook solution. What students can do at home: As always, check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for fun activities and skill builders. Replicate the activity above but with real clothing, adding some silly items to get them thinking and keep it fun & interesting. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We warmed up with some keyboarding fun and an introduction to "Super Hyper Spider Typer," a longtime lab favorite (they were allowed to choose another keyboarding activity if they wanted.) I checked for prior knowledge about measuring with non-standard units by starting a conversation with a yardstick in my hand and then asking the kids if I could measure the TV with my shoe. Some said no but most said yes. I talked about estimated and actual measures and sent them off to play Curious George - How Tall? and the Fearless Flying Fleas Game. Back together as a whole group we watched the first four minutes of this great PBS Kids’ Sid the Science Kid lesson on Exploring Measurement. We brainstormed some things to measure and came up with estimates which we recorded on the SMART Board. Then we created give "paper body rulers" using bulletin board paper and crayons/washable markers and we set everyone loose to measure. Chaos ensued as teams of kids raced around the room measuring their assigned items and reporting their data to me, which we recorded and reviewed as a class. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson was a LOT more fun than I expected. The creation of the "paper body rulers" was fun but the racing around the room to get all the measurements was even better. Most importantly, the kids totally got the concept of proper non-standard unit measuring and correctly identified when it wasn’t being done right (overlaps, starting in the wrong position, etc.) Kids are pretty good at estimating as the majority of the items we measured were within one unit of accuracy. What students can do at home: This activity could easily be replicated with any number of objects. Challenge the kids to use different units and to think BIG. How many hockey sticks long is the car? The HOUSE? How many bicycles wide is the driveway? Record their estimates and compare them to the actuals and see how close they are for some simple math practice. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo page for fun online activities! Screencast in action - note the large yellow circle where the cursor is on the right. That’s a feature of Camtasia, the software I used to produce the screencast. More of the screencast in action. Note the video progress bar along the bottom. Screencasts were stored locally on these SD cards rather than accessed via the Internet to ensure smooth playback and minimal disruption to our wireless network. They are on our Schooltube Channel for viewing at home. Second, Third and Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Given what we knew would be a challenging assignment, we skipped the keyboarding warmup and got right to work on the lesson. The goal was to create a simple spreadsheet in Google Docs to analyze data captured in the previous "Water Drops on a Penny" challenge. Students watched a screencast I made over winter recess that explained the process, created the spreadhseet, shared it with me, entered data, created formulas and did some basic formatting. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson was a watershed event for a few reasons. For one, all students were partially successful. Some finished the project outright (it was intended to be a two-session lesson.) Even those that did not get far did accomplish the basics - they created the spreadsheet, shared it with me, and entered at least some data. It was also significant because it was the first successful use of a screencast in my classroom. We’ve had screencasts before, but, we showed them to the entire class due to bandwidth issues. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that I could store the screencasts on SD cards plugged into each Chromebook, so, I picked up 25 512mb SD cards for $35 (total) on eBay. I simply copied the video file to each one and pre-inserted it into the Chromebooks before class. Playback was smooth and trouble-free. The system worked much better than I anticipated and now I know I can rely on this solution. That said, my screencasts leave a lot to be desired. They’re too long and I stumble over the words too often. I don’t use a script, but it gets easier after the fourteenth or fifteenth attempt… Finally, it was also significant because students were really in charge of their own learning. As I suspected from the beginning when I envisioned "flipping" my lessons in the first place, screencast-based lessons allowed students to work at their own pace and for the adults in the room to assist individually where needed. The room was basically silent as they worked; I prefer it to be noisy, but in this case, the silence really was golden. What students can do at home: Check out the grade-level Symblaoo pages for fun learning activities: Grade 2 | Grade 3 |Grade 4 Practice keyboarding with Typing Pal. Students should know their usernames and passwords by now (they are simpler than Google Docs.) If they are really adventurous, have them log into Google Docs (click here for the link) and show you their work. They can also watch the screencast and see if they can follow along (though they won’t have the data sheet; they can make up data but obviously won’t use that for any conclusions.) I would love, love, LOVE to hear that students worked on Google Docs at home! If your child does so, please have them tell me!

Our district has been doing a lot of work with students in English/Language Arts (ELA) with non fiction reading and writing.  My community team has been working together to find … Continue reading →

Take a little time to grow and get involved in the online learning community. Here are three webinars that might interest you. UPDATED!Post from: The eLearning CoachWebinars In April 2010

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: This was what I consider an "off week" for students in Grades 2-3-4 as we worked through a "Part 2″ of (a.k.a. finished) the prior week’s lesson - in this case, a screencast on Google Spreadsheets. Kindergarten’s lesson was based on what I did with first grade the week before (with some modifications). But the big news this week is that in First Grade, we kicked off our first ever Engineering is Elementary STEM unit including a micro-field trip with a little "hands-on" exploration of brick walls and mortar. Please note: in our current "Day" rotation, my new lessons start on Thursdays (Day 1). These "days" change over the course of the year due to holidays, etc. (This also means that as of this writing, three of my five classes have not seen these lessons yet.) Week ending 01/11/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: Students warmed up with a few minutes of keyboarding fun using an activity of their choice from the Kindergarten Symbaloo page. Later, we assembled at the SMART Board to talk about the day’s lesson: non-standard measurement. As I explained the basic concepts, few believed me when I said I could measure my classroom TV with my shoe! I introduced the first two website activities above and sent them scampering back to their Chromebooks to try the activities for themselves. Afterwards, we returned to the SMART Board where we watched the Sid the Science Kid episode above. (side note: half the class looked right at me when the teacher says it’s okay to measure things with your shoe. I just smiled and said "Told ya!") With that context, five kids volunteered to be "traced" for the "paper body rulers" and the entire class got in on the fun coloring them in. Finally, we estimated how many lengths of various "rulers" would be needed to measure objects in the room. We then ran around and measured those objects, comparing our estimates to the actual values. It was awesome! What I observed / inferred / connected: Kids loved this lesson, especially the running around the room part. They enjoyed the estimating/guessing and seeing how close we were (or weren’t). This led to some rich conversations about why, measuring technique, what constitutes a good and bad guess, etc. All in all it was very engaging. The Sid the Science Kid episode is cute but I’ve got issues with it. First, the teacher measures using 2″ wide wooden blocks that clearly leave a gap between placements of the paper body ruler. Second, she has a poor little long-haired girl lie down on the bare FLOOR (!?!) for measuring purposes. (Maybe they don’t have "dust bunnies" in that school…) What students can do at home: This activity could easily be replicated with any number of objects. Challenge the kids to use different units and to think BIG. How many hockey sticks long is the car? The HOUSE? How many bicycles wide is the driveway? Record their estimates and compare them to the actuals and see how close they are for some simple math practice. As always, check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for fun activities and skill builders. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Students warmed up on the Chromebooks with a keyboarding activity of their choice, then we gathered on the cubes in front of the SMART Board to introduce "A Sticky Situation: Designing Walls," the first Engineering is Elementary unit taught in my classroom. (Check out the unit overview and the unit summary.) I mentioned that we were starting something new and different called "STEM" and that we would be doing a lot of reading, exploring, experimenting and building - including making our own walls. They were very excited! We read the first three chapters of "Yi Min’s Great Wall," the storybook that presents the engineering design challenge at the center of the unit. It features a relateable character in a far-away place, in this case, a young Chinese schoolgirl named Yi Min who wants to protect her school’s garden from a marauding, hungry rabbit. We talked about brick walls, how they are constructed, what problems they solve for us (walls are, after all, technology), where we see walls, what mortar is and does, and more. We took a micro-field trip to the elementary school vestibule to explore brick walls and mortar there. Kids ran their fingers on the mortar and felt small particles of dirt (sand) come off. We talked about why that is, what the mortar is made of, and how it holds the bricks in place. We then returned to the STEMLAB where we used Google Earth to show how far China is from the USA by "flying" from NCS to several places the kids might know - New York City; Walt Disney World; Los Angeles; and finally, Bejiing, China. Small mouths were agape as the Earth spun around for what seemed like forever until Bejiing appeared. We then wrapped up with an intro of the next week’s lesson and let the kids play on the Chromebooks for a few minutes before leaving. What I observed / inferred / connected: This was amazing fun, both watching Mrs. Best (shown above) read the story (and getting a chance to read it too!) The storybook was easy to follow and place emphasis where needed for dramatic effect. We stopped for questions periodically and had some great conversations along the way about gardens, caring for them, what types of things are grown in gardens, etc. We talked about earth materials for building, which might be better for walls than others, and which types we’ve seen around school and home. The Google Earth "Fly-to’s" were very popular and the kids really seemed to "get" the distance between New Jersey and China. "It’s on the other whole side of the world!" was one reaction. Overall, this was a very fun (and different) way to spend Computer Lab time and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. (When I mentioned we’d be building walls, they all actually started cheering!) What students can do at home: Talk about brick walls either in your home or nearby. Ask your child what they know about the walls, how they are formed, why they are created, etc. and let them astound you. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo page for fun online activities! Second, Third and Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: As I said in the intro, this was an "off week" for students in Grades 2-3-4 because we worked through a "Part 2″ of (a.k.a. finished) the prior week’s lesson - in this case, a screencast on Google Spreadsheets. We also had the students complete a survey to share their thoughts about use of screencasts in my class. Only two of my five classes have completed it so far, so I won’t be sharing any data quite yet. What I observed / inferred / connected: Screencasting WORKS, even with our kludgy use of SD memory cards to hold the recordings. (Can’t wait until those are no longer needed.) My screencasting skills still need a lot of work. Most of all: I need to be more concise. Kids that needed extra help to complete this really seemed to struggle with the idea of working independently. Perhaps that’s because they are so used to having someone work with them? I need more time to digest this, and to see if additional screencasts can encourage them to develop self-help and troubleshooting skills. What students can do at home: Check out the grade-level Symblaoo pages for fun learning activities: Grade 2 | Grade 3 |Grade 4 Practice keyboarding with Typing Pal. Students should know their usernames and passwords by now (they are simpler than Google Docs.) If they are really adventurous, have them log into Google Docs (click here for the link) and show you their work. They can also watch the screencast and see if they can follow along (though they won’t have the data sheet; they can make up data but obviously won’t use that for any conclusions.) I would love, love, LOVE to hear that students worked on Google Docs at home! If your child does so, please have them tell me!

Judging by some of the reactions I have been getting to my Data Change Everything blogpost last night, I would say I've touched a bit of a nerve. Good. People get ready, there a change a comin'. Just a few...

It’s Digital Learning Month (and as I write this DLDay!) and I want to share my classroom activity.  I started my Weather project.  "i, Meteorologist" is supposed to come as … Continue reading →